Lateral Thinking in Arwa Khumayyies’s Saudi Children’s Stories

Abstract: Drawing on Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking techniques, this article examines Arwa Khumayyies’s encouragement of the restructuring of children’s thinking patterns to open their minds to new ideas in Ser al sabah ( The Morning Secret ) and Ana Rumi ( I Am Rumi ). The study explores how the Saudi writer challenges established assumptions and perceptions of conventional children’s behavior in solving problems by inviting children to “laterally” try new ideas and approaches via a nonsequential thought process. Khumayyies’s characters show that children can overcome challenges through simple yet effective methods, which is the aim of lateral thinking. The study sees Khumayyies’s stories as an original contribution to Saudi children’s culture, whose novelty stems from an approach to problem-solving corresponding to de Bono’s frameworks of reversal thinking, provocation operation, and alternative strategy.